Page 25 of Beautiful Lies

I’m available tonight, if you want me.

It’s the kind of offer I would have accepted if my dick didn’t want the ice princess next to me. The irony is definitely not lost on me.

I sense curious eyes on me. I turn to find Isla glaring with a sour smirk on her pretty face.

There’s no doubt she saw the message. I am sitting right next to her, and the backlight on my phone has the message lit up in full view.

“I guess clause three doesn’t apply toyou.” She keeps her voice low so Don can’t hear. Points to her for being mindful.

Clause three—no consorting with members of the opposite sex, no secret meetings, and no fucking—wouldn’t mean anything to Don, but if he were to betray me and look hard enough, it would give context to the contract with Isla I want kept secret.

I smirk and lean closer. “Actually, it does.”

“Doesn’t look that way to me.” She glances back at my phone with arched brows.

I shift closer, an idea forming. I hold out my phone so she can see the screen properly. I find Jessica’s number, and block it. Then I delete the contact and the entire thread of our messages.

Isla blinks, her expression flickering from surprise to practiced indifference.

“How noble of you. I’m sure there are plenty of others.”

“There are,” I admit, voice steady. “When you come to my place, you can delete them yourself. I don’t have time for that.”

For a second, she just stares, lips parted, all that fire flickering into silence. I don’t say a word. I don’t have to. She gets it.

She turns away and resumes staring out the window. I look at her a little longer, letting her feel the heat of my gaze.

Once again, I wonder what kind of ride I’m in for with this girl. I only met her yesterday, and she’s already making me break all my rules.

I return my gaze to the road ahead and force my mind to settle.

Ten minutes later, we cross into Brooklyn, and another five brings us to her family home.

It’s small with two stories, framed by a white picket fence that’s seen better days. The porch light glows soft and warm, and there’s a pot of dying flowers on the steps that someone still cares enough to water.

It’s not grand, not polished like the lavish home I grew up in or the one I own now. But it has that homey vibe. The kind of place that smells like Sunday dinners and safety. Everything my world isn’t.

I imagine Isla and her family living an ordinary life here. One where her mother wasn’t a self-centered monster who didn’t want children, and her father—even though he was a thieving bastard—did his best to be a father.

A pang of envy clenches my insides. It’s crazy to feel envious because I had so much, but I guess I really didn’t have it all.

My father is my idol, but he stayed with my mother too long.

The moment Don pulls up on the curb, Isla undoes her seatbelt, then she’s out of the car faster than a heart can beat.

I could let her go. I wanted to see her home, and I have.

But there are still things I need to say. Things she needs to understand that I couldn’t say in here. And I’m not the kind of man who leaves things unsaid.

I step out of the car and catch up to her, drawing a low frustrated sigh from her lips.

“I’m perfectly capable of getting to the door by myself,” she argues, cutting me a hard stare.

“I’m aware, but we didn’t get the chance to speak.”

She tries to walk ahead when we go through the gate, but I fall in step easily with her.

“We’ve spoken enough. I don’t want to talk anymore.”